


A chest of riddles

by hauntedpoem



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Child Neglect, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Violence, animal cruelty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 07:34:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16949721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedpoem/pseuds/hauntedpoem
Summary: Merope, her story in few chapters, just as her sorry life.





	1. The beginning

_Chapter 1_

***

The first time she sees him is right after Hallows' Eve. Merope had never been good at divination spells and that sort of magic vastly depleted her but she knew, as soon as she saw him, that she wanted Tom.

In her fuzzy mind's eye, he was the one for her. The only one.

Actually, it was more a thought to escape loneliness and the disgrace that her father and brother have put her through. It did not take her much to realize that both were brutes in their own ways. The father, still in his right mind, a worse brute than her mad brother. She remembers the night that Marvolo summoned them both from the bed they were sharing in that hovel of a house and got them to disrobe.

They were both scared and trembling as his eyes roamed over their waxy bodies, bones protruding with malnourishment, skin a bit too unhealthy looking to be deemed attractive, hair dark and long like snakes.

“My little vipers,” he would whisper with a toothless mouth and his black hole eyes would become suddenly clear of cataract and less bloodshot. He would bid them to approach and touch them both, passionless and clinical, scratching their tender skin with blackened fingertips.

And when things would not work properly, he would just shout in irritation.

“You daft cow!” Marvolo would shout his displeasure and frustration and he would often slap her buttocks.

This day is no different. Her cheeks get instantly red, fill with blood, more so than her face which continues to remain sallow and cold. She sees Morfin swallow hard, looking at her with discontent and fear that their father... He would, wouldn't he? At least he doesn't call her a Squib and doesn't ring up Morfin's impotence. She is mortified at herself and her brother. She always displeases her father and she doesn't even try.

 Merope looks down at her toes not in shame but in frustration because she wasn't even wet between her hairy folds, and Morfin could barely get an erection under the scrutiny. She wanted it to be over quickly so she could get back  to the snakes in the garden, while Morfin was waiting for a reaction from his body, half cruel, half defeated.  It was something they both knew that it will have to work one day to get an heir to the Gaunts... but that thought is for another day, Merope thinks. The thought that her brother would touch her like that is abominable on its own. She thinks of the snakes.

It's not even because they are blood related but because there is no mystery to him, no surprise. He is a skinny, impotent thing, with yellowed teeth and a pigeon chest. The only beautiful thing about him is the dark green of his eyes. Their only flaw, that she also shares, is that they point to different directions. They remind her of the murky water of the lake. Sometimes they go clear, a bright sparkling green of a stone, like a Chinese jade she saw once in the shop at Borgin's. Her father couldn't afford it, though, no matter how much she begged. Her father would not buy it for her no matter how much she begged, more likely.

Some nights he goes into her bed and presses his flaccid self next to her almost naked buttocks. The thin sheet of her nightgown separates them under the frayed blanket she uses. Little possessions and too many warming spells make the bed creak and moan. She hears and then feels him spit in his hand and wet her cunt, two spindly fingers searching for entrance. Wrong hole, again. She fumbles and places her hand in warning on his chest. There are few hairs surrounding the indentation left by the abnormal magic that took for Morfin's conception.

Merope is vaguely disgusted but she knew him all her life and if only he could claim her like he obviously wished, she would be now done for, free at last of her father's examining and his prodding. She would breed him a semblance of an heir and she could be free to walk the forest and see her precious snakes, talk to them in the sussurating language that no one taught her and caress their soft skin.  
But Morfin could not. In darkness she fumbled for his small organ and tried caressing him with her cold hand. She was brusque and clammy and her nails, some short, some long, were jagged from too much digging for roots near the forest of the Riddle's property.

If Morfin's cock was a snake, it would be a dead one. Limp.  
He hit her hard on the flank with a fist and pulled her hair until she cried and turned to bite him. She wanted to strike him, fanged and callous but the coldness and emptiness of her stomach made her refrain from it. Useless and powerless she felt.

She was now too hungry to go back to sleep, and her brother too upset to let go of her cold buttocks. The only fat thing she owned, she realized. He stroked it lazily, from time to time pinching it viciously. And then she felt it between her ass cheeks, that smallish cock of his, a tubular organ that hardened and filled with blood and curiosity, now prying her asshole open. She moaned and swallowed her spittle, thickly. A small inconvenience she had to go through to have him exhausted enough to let her sleep. He pushed once, twice, thrice and hissed, snake-like.

Morfin did not even enter her that he spilled himself in watery ropes of seed. He muttered a Scourgify, turned and fell asleep.

Soon, Merope would do the same, her thoughts drifting to their muggle neighbour, Tom Riddle. Handsome and rich, he was everything she desired to be.

In the morning she usually tends to the garden, mostly peppered with magical herbs and few edible plants. Nothing would have grown here if her father, Marvolo, wouldn't have brought, or rather, stolen earth from beyond the forest. From Riddle property, from old Slytherin land. Snakes slither around her as she digs for roots.

The sun shines up in the sky but now is obscured by thick yew branches. Something new is in the air snd Merope can haunt it like a snake, with her mouth open and tongue pointed, just like a snake. Something, she knew, was bound to happen that day.

 

That day, men in long, heavy cloaks stepped onto their land. The wards were thrumming and buzzing with a fierce energy, announcing the intruders.

Ministry men they were, their faces clean shaven and their hands with neatly trimmed fingernails, each holding a wand. Threateningly.

Tbc...


	2. The Aurors

_Chapter 2_

***

Merope has never seen men looking like that. Well... except the young master of the Riddle estate who lived just across the woods from their shack.

They introduced themselves but kept a polite distance. She sensed their attitude towards her was infused with a certain coldness, maybe that's how Aurors were supposed to be. Carruthers and Selwyn. She was not used to interacting with such men. They made her want to coil and spring to attack, like a viper.

They were lean and tall and both wore black leather robes over black wool suits cut to perfection, not the wrinkly, oversized trousers and coats she'd seen on her brother or the decrepit robes without trousers at all that she'd seen on her father. They were handsome and commanding, with their wands held firmly in their hands and an air of anticipation in their stance.

One was young, with a pleasant face, probably her age but you never knew with their kind, and the other, Carruthers, was older, wiser. Circumspect.

“Good day to you, Miss,” Selwyn spoke first, inclining his hat toward her.

Merope looked lost, hissed at the snakes that were curling at her feet protectively.

“Miss?” he inquired. It was uneasiness in his voice.

Merope spoke her name and kept her face to the side. Her father taught her that, said she would scare anyone away if she looked them in the eye directly. But she couldn't look at anything straightforward. Everything was lopsided, no need for them to know that, though. Her birth defect a minor annoyance. What mattered was how pure her blood was.

“We are not here for you and surely do not want to inconvenience you any more than it is necessary. We just want to ask your brother and father some questions,” Selwyn said again.

“I knoweth no such things,” she spoke with difficulty. It was easier to hiss like a snake but alas, these men knew not such sophisticated language.

“Patience, Selwyn, let's wait for her.” Carruthers spoke in a hushed, grave voice. He assessed Merope with a glance.

She was afraid of him but she did not know the reason for it. Probably because he would give a speck of dust more attention than it would her.

 

With a loud crack, a thin, tall witch apparated in front of the Gaunt Shack.  
“You're late, Willoughby,” the older wizard said. There was no bite, no reprimand to it.

“Those blasted potioneers,” she scoffed as she righted her coat about her, a sleeve still fumigating from a curse. She pulled the sleeve up as much as it allowed and Selwyn was next to her in an instant, casting healing charms upon it.

Merope smiled at the singed flesh of her arm. For some reason, she could not contain her giddiness. The mark on the woman's flesh made her happy for she had already so many good things about her while Merope had none.  
When the skin would not heal but continued to break as if the burn was extending, Merope could not control her laughter. She knew that curse. Father used it on Morphin when he was really angry.

The woman looked at her fiercely, her bobbed red hair swinging with the brusque movement.  
“Something funny?” she fully turned to Merope, her grey eyes hard as stone.

Merope watched transfixed as Willoughby’s face changed from annoyance, back to anger then disgust but she never insulted her. Not directly. Willoughby turned her back on her in revulsion and addressed Selwyn imperiously. She didn't spare Merope a glance.  
“Postpone the mission, I think dittany's in order for me.” She waved her wand at her robe once more so that the marks and scratches faded into the black leather as of they haven't landed there in the first place.

Merope understood then. How insignificant she must appear to these men, to this woman. They knew nothing about her. She and her brother were the heirs of Slytherin, the purest blood there was. And to them she was nothing. They only wanted her father and her brother. It made her very upset. Her face scrunched with the pain of rejection.

Carruthers was muttering something and extracted a vial from an inner pocket which flung directly into the woman's hand and Willoughby tended to her wound. It began to close without a trace and the thought of the woman having her unmarred skin back twisted at Merope's very soul.

Willoughby was not prepared when the snake flung itself at her face from the branches of a tree. Merope hissed and hissed and gurgled and Selwyn sliced the viper in two but the creature did not let go where it implanted its fangs into Willoughby’s soft, freckled cheek.  
At least now she would know a bit of pain just like Merope felt every second of her existence.

Carruthers took care of it and disapparated straight away. Selwyn remained, watching her with distrust. His face hardened. He held her at wand point. He exhaled in defeat and looked at her with disappointment, not fury.  
“I already cast a protective shield, should you try anything to surprise me.” He took a shuddery breath. “Now tell me, where are the other Gaunts? Are they hiding like snakes on the property?”  
Merope guffawed at that word. Property. They had the shack only and the little garden. The Riddle owned the rest. He did not know, the ignorant man.

“May-be?” she answered as if she found it all very amusing and turned her face and her eyes on Selwyn. “May-be not?”

Selwyn ignored that and continued. Merope was jealous of his pretty face, of his distinguished voice. Of his eyes.

“The Ministry wants to know where they are because of their involvement with a group of potioneers that push illegal potions on the market. Several people have been harmed, two are dead.” He seemed upset at the suffering of these people that Merope did not know.

“You have to tell me, you surely do not want innocent people harmed like that.” Selwyn spoke with sentiment, on his face were all sorts of emotions that made Merope feel bad. Why is this man hanging on to her? She doesn't know those people and she couldn't care less if they died because they drank those potions. After all, no one would care about her. So why would she waste herself on others? She made that clear to Selwyn with butchered words but sent her mind into his just for a good picture.

The man recoiled and fell to the floor clutching his head in his hands as if he was in pain. Merope approached for she had never seen such a display as a consequence of her mindspeak before.  
Selwyn regarded her with disgust and a trace of fear as he raised himself from the dust.

That's it... There it was! The expression she was waiting for from this Ministry man. Not so confident anymore, see?  
He pulled himself together, dusted off his robe with a swish of his wand, inclined his head as if saluting a snail and with a cold look in his eyes, he disapparated.

He left Merope in a rage and just like a child she yelled and cried and stomped her feet on the ground. The snakes started emerging from the garden and hissing in soothing notes as if to console her but she would have none of that. She caught one in her hand and hit it hard on the ground until the creature started convulsing in visible pain. She then nailed it with magic spreading its blood on the door handle then spat on it.

The handle morphed into the form of a metal snake and the door would not budge unless she hissed in Parselmouth, “Open.” She could do magic she knew. And no one would bother her. She fell exhausted into a chair and played into her mind the images she took from Selwyn's head.

Tbc....


	3. The hex

_Chapter 3_

***

It was fear that she felt when their father made his way to the room that to this day she shared with Morfin.

  
He cursed as he stumbled into the furniture and shuffled in a disoriented state. Marvolo was drunk again and when under the liquor's influence his wrath had no bounds. He was all seething violence.

 

  
“Where are you, you whore?” he shouted at the top of his lungs, while kicking at the dilapidated furniture.

 

  
As he entered the dingy room, Merope was nowhere in sight. This only made him angrier. She escaped through the window and cowering, took refuge in the garden.  
A noise broke Marvolo's single minded focus of retribution on his daughter for even daring to entertain the aurors.  
It was bad enough that she showed her cursed face to them, now he was wanted by the Law Enforcement for questioning.

  
The muggle automobile made terrible noise as it cut through the road to Riddle Manor. Marvolo replaced fear and awe with disgust and more violence. He threw hexes at the vanishing car but ony managed to singe the road. His anger took a new turn when he spotted on the road the young Riddle, tall, handsome and proud on his horse. His idiot daughter would mumble incessantly about this muggle and his impatience with her uselessness was wearing thin.

 

  
Riddle’s horse galloped leisurely and he headed without a care in the same direction as the black automobile. The contraption both amazed and repulsed Marvolo. If he could burn it to ashes he would have done so but the damn thing was quite fast.

 

  
But young Riddle wasn't. He put his foot forward and held the crooked wand like a weapon, pointing it at Tom Riddle's form.

  
“Furunculus!” he shouted and the young man started screaming and panicking and the horse began neighing and catching a dangerous speed.  
Merope was out in the street, her hands wild about her.

 

Upon seeing his useless daughter react to this spectacle he threw a stinging hex at her.

 

“You daft cow!” he groused tearing his eyes away from the departing Riddle, “don't you know to show your face when I call you?”  
But Merope was running towards the Riddle manor, wailing and screaming and in her desperation she tripped and hit her head on the gravel, splitting her lip and grazing her forehead.

  
Her love! He was in danger, she could see him dismount the horse and scream his lungs out, lunging into a grassy patch and then into the lake. His skin must be burning by now. She got on her feet and ignoring her father's slurs and curses she went after Tom Riddle.

 

  
He was in pain and his pretty face was covered in boils. He splashed his face with water but they continued to grow and pop everywhere on his skin, on his back and chest and neck. The horse freaked out when Merope approached, already fumbling through her bag of herbs for something to soothe the itching and the burning.

 

  
He let her near him, that's how desperate he was. She helped him out of the water and couldn't help but shudder at his proximity. She laid him down and made a paste out of clay and herbs and applied it to his face. The burning calmed down immediately.

 

  
His eyes were so beautiful with tears in them. Gratitude tears, she liked to think, and she touched him boldly all over his body, memorizing the softness of his clothes merging with his taut muscles and supple skin.

  
She smiled, engrossed in her exploration but he shuddered, pure terror writ on his face, twisted from pain and the vulnerability of his body under her touch.

  
Her teeth were rotting and her eyes, her eyes just faced different directions, like a chameleon. When she kissed his cheek, Tom held his breath and prayed to the Virgin Mary to protect him from evil.

 

  
“Please...” He cried out. “Leave me in peace...”

 

  
But she would not and then everything turned black as if a curtain was pulled over his head.

 

  
"Obliviate!"

 

tbc...


End file.
